Why This Indicator Matters

The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) scores represent a snapshot in time of student performance and should not be considered the sole indicator of student achievement. Standardized assessments, like the PSSA, help Pennsylvania meet federal and state requirements, as well as provide educators, stakeholders, and policymakers with important information about the commonwealth’s students and schools, and inform instructional practices.

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PSSA - Overall writing test scores by proficiency level (2010-2013)

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PSSA - Overall writing test scores by proficiency level (2010-2013)

Definitions:
The percent of all students who took the writing PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) test for each district, charter school or technical school grouped by proficiency level.

Beginning 2012-13, PSSA tests were administered to only grades 3 - 8. Scores are not available for 2013-14.

In 2014-15, there were changes to the reading, writing and math PSSAs to
reflect that these tests are now aligned to the Pennsylvania Common
Core Standards. As a result of this alignment, the separate writing
PSSAs in grades 5 and 8 were eliminated and students in grades 3-8
instead took an English Language Arts PSSA that includes both reading
and writing. Implementing the stronger academic standards and measuring
how well students are doing on the more challenging PSSA tests resulted
in an initial decline in test scores when they were released. This drop
in scores was not unexpected and should not be interpreted as a decline
in student learning or teacher performance. It simply means Pennsylvania
is recalibrating expectations and raising the bar for student
achievement to ensure our kids are on a pathway to graduate from high
school post-secondary and workforce ready.